[Inflammatory cerebro-vascular disease: angiographic findings and distribution patterns (author's transl)].

Although cerebral angiography should be approached with caution in the diagnosis of inflammatory cerebro-vascular disease there are some characteristic angiographic findings which may be helpful for classification and differential diagnosis. The proximal cerebral arteries are favourably affected by basal meningitis and thrombangiitis obliterans with resulting stenoses and occlusions. Whereas those inflammations originating from neighbouring skull structures mostly involve the intracavernous parts of the carotid artery, the tuberculous and mycotic arteritis prefer the supraclinoid carotid siphon. Peripheral vascular changes are found in luetic endangiitis, necrotizing and toxic angiitis and in collagenoses. Simultaneous involvement of the temporal arteries is of great diagnostic importance demonstrating the systemic character of the inflammatory process; in Horton's arteritis it can be a pathognomonic finding. Infectious endocarditis, some mycoses and malaria may lead to embolic occlusion of cerebral vessels. Mycotic aneurysms mostly have a broad base or a fusiform shape and do not prefer the localizations of congenital aneurysms. Angiographically, abscesses, tuberculomas and viral encephalitis may result in circumscribed hypervascularized areas. The characteristic angiographic findings are exemplified and discussed on the basis of 8 cases of inflammatory cerebro-vascular disease (tuberculosis, pneumococcal and unspecific bacterial meningitis, syphilis, mycosis, Takayasu-syndrome, panarteritis nodosa, temporal arteritis).